Following the Buried Under Paper episode, I’ve just realised that I’m facing an even bigger crisis tomorrow.
We give Linda enough money each week to buy her agreed newspapers and magazines, to pay for various classes or events and to buy a drink and a snack as needed each day with a little left over for treats.
As a result of her over expenditure this week – examples included an extra can of coke (when she had drinks in her bag) , chocolate bar (when she already had food with her), milk-shake and extra newspapers (remember, this was the fourth newspaper of the day) – come tomorrow, Sunday, she won’t have enough money to buy a newspaper at all.
What do I do? Give in? Give her money? Buy her newspapers? Teach her a lesson?
None of these feel like good solutions.
We did start to encourage Linda to earn extra money by doing small household chores but she’s now realised this is an easy way to top up her purse and so it isn’t actually helping her to learn to budget as we might have hoped. She overspends and immediately comes to ask if she can do the washing-up… I guess that’s some form of success but it feels fairly hollow-right now.
As a Williams Syndrome adult I guess I should be happy she has any sense of money. I just know she can do better.